IN ENGLISHIn the beginning of January, here, I tried to get color from pieces of wood full of mycelium of fungus Chlorociboria, and after soaking the wood in ammonia, didn't get any color to yarns.At that time I had also put some of the wood to soak in alcohol, I used rubbing alcohol which is cheapest here.Here american Sandra Rude has written good instructions how to get color from different kinds of wood using alcohol to extract the dyes from wood. Any kind of alcohol is ok.In the picture above in the left jar, the pieces of wood colored turqoise by the fungus Chlorociboria have been soaking in alcohol for five days, and there is no color in the liquid. I didn't expect much from this jar and had left it to soak for longer time, but after two weeks the liquid was dark brown! The jar on the right.I poured the liquid and the wood pieces to kettle, added some fresh water and simmered for one hour. After the bath had cooled down, I added 20grams of mordanted yarn (there were 80grams of dry wood pieces). Contrary to the ammonia soak, the soaking in alcohol had produced color and my yarn turned light brown. Afterwards I started to think if the color had come from the wood itself, and not from the mycelium. To be sure I should try the same with pieces of wood where there is not this fungus. I don't know what the actual dyes are which the alcohol extracts from wood.Also another thing is that I simmered the soaked liquid, and Sandra Rude warns not to raise the temperature over 140°F! And even a longer soak may have produced more color. I'm now wiser next time:)EDIT: the wood was from birch, so perhaps the color came from the mycelium. Birch wood looks quite pale go give any color.. but who know, maybe there still are dyes in it.

IN ENGLISHSometimes you can find pieces of rotten wood, which are all turqoise/green. The green color comes from mycelium of fungus Chlorociboria, here more about it in English. In the summer and early autumn it is possible to find also blue mushrooms produced from this mycelium, but I have never found them, only blue-green pieces of wood. Here in Finland there are two species of Chlorociboria, but it is impossible to say from the wood which one is it.

IN ENGLISHAccording to the mushroom dye book by Bessette these mushrooms are dye dud, they give no color, at least not with normal boiling method. I wanted to try how they react to soak in high pH or in alcohol, perhaps ammonia or alcohol would make the dyestuffs soluble and able to attach to wool. I added ammonia to the bigger jar and alcohol to the smaller jar, and I was pleased to see that after soaking one day the ammonia had turned the liquid and wood pieces from turqoise to dark brown. (this is what happens to Hydnellum mushrooms, too, and the blue dyes are then soluble). The jar with alcohol showed no change in color, and it seems that the dyestuffs had not become soluble in water.

IN ENGLISHI boiled the contents of the bigger jar with ammonia for an hour, at first the pH was over 10, but it dropped to 9 during the boiling. I had had 180grams of dryish pieces of wood, and added 40grams of mordanted wool to the bath. I didn't strain the bath, the wood was still there with the yarn. At first the yarn turned out pale reddish brown, but within couple of minutes the color changed to greenish yellow. After dyeing for one hour the yarn was pale greenish yellow , but practically all of the color rinsed out when I washed the yarn. You can see the yarn below, nothing really.So even though some things in nature seem to have a fantastic color, not all of them dye yarn the same color, at least not with the methods I know. However it may be that you could use these turqoise pieces of wood to make paper with other materials (with polypores among other things), and perhaps they will give that nice green to the paper. I haven't tried, so I don't know, but that is something to experiment for someone who makes paper:)

IN ENGLISHHere are some pictures from the market yesterday morning. The weather has been grey and rainy, and I was going to write unusually warm for this time of year, but then started thinking that what the usual weather is like, and many times in the south coast of Finland the we haven't had much snow (unlike north of Finland). The past few winters have been unusually snowy (really, and too long) and cold, this is more what the weather is many times here in the beginning of January. I had hoped for the mild winter to continue, but it seems it's getting colder and snow by the end of the week. The weather doesn't affect the sales when most of the customers are tourists who are here only for a short time. Naturally we hope for tourists who appreciate all wool and that knitters find our booth:) Of course there are some regular Finnish customers as well, which we appreciate very much.

IN ENGLISHHere are some pictures from web camera by the market, so you see how the market is by the sea and by the harbor. The big cruise ships go to Stockholm and Tallinn also in the winter, and in the summer there are several more cruise ships which come here. The market is also within the walking distance from the center of Helsinki and all the big shops. In the winter the wind may be quite cold from the sea and it is good that my husband tolerates more cold than me:-), but in the summer this is a very beautiful place and the breeze from the sea is nice then.

IN ENGLISHIn the winter there are lot less sellers than in the summer and all the booths are close together nearer to Esplandi park. In the week days there are only a few booths (not us) and even in Saturdays there are the same amount of sellers at the most as in these pictures. In the summertime our permanent place is behind the big statue in the middle of the market, to the left from it, towards Uspenski Cathedral , by the street. In the winter we have no permanent place but there are not so many booths that you can't find us easily, I hope.

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WHY USE NATURAL DYES

"We can keep the knowledge of their use alive, as well as regaining for ourselves a vital contact with the natural world. The ability to correctly identify the plants needed, to understand their growth stages sufficiently well to be able to obtain the greatest dye, offer both challenge and pleasure."

We sell our yarns, mitten kits, knitted things and my husband's photographs at the market Kauppatori in Helsinki. This week we will be at the market on Monday August 14th, Tuesday August 15th, Thursday August 17th and Saturday August 19th